Saturday, July 14, 2012

Cooking Alaturka

I like cooking. So, I was really excited that we were taking a cooking class in Istanbul to learn about traditional Turkish cooking. We made five dishes! Here's our menu (they told us the Turkish names - I didn't know them):

* Ezogelin Çorbasi: lentil and bulgur soup with dried mint and red pepper. It was really good and Daddy made it (and ate it).
* Ímam Bayildi: braised eggplant stuffed with onions, tomatoes, garlic and herbs. It was really hard to hollow the eggplants out, but the grownups did that. Sophie and I put them on plates and made them look pretty.

* Kabak Mücveri: zucchini pancakes with white cheese and herbs. These are like latkes but with zucchini (Grandma used a big knife to cut them all up), and they are really good with garlic yogurt.
* Etli Yaprak Dolmasi: grape leaves stuffed with rice, meat and tomatoes. I mushed the lamb and beef together with onions and lots of things I don't remember. We had to stuff each leaf and roll it tightly so they made cute little packets!

* Sekerpare: semolina sponge cakes soaked in syrup with hazelnuts. Mommy made the dough. We rolled them into balls and threw them onto a tray. When they were baked, we made a syrup of lemon, sugar and water and put it in the tray to soak up. Then Sophie and I topped them with hazelnuts and put them on a plate.

Yum!

Thanks to Feyzi and Goiz at Cooking Alaturka for being so nice and patient. We learned lots and lots about cooking and eating well.